Family of Woman Killed by Car Awarded $250K in Wrongful Death Lawsuit

Photo: Emily Driscoll, 22, of Naperville, with her friends and beloved Greyhound, Quincy. The dog also died of injuries as a result of the accident.

The family of a Naperville woman who was struck and killed by a car while she was walking her dog won $250,000 in a wrongful death lawsuit, the maximum possible under the circumstances.

However, the money does not make up for the huge loss Emily Driscoll’s death has left on her family.

"They are really hurting," family attorney G. Grant Dixon III told the Chicago Tribune. "They're never going to get over this. They're not in a position to talk about it, and I don't think they ever will be."

Emily and her dog, Quincy, were both killed the evening of Nov. 9, 2014, while they were crossing Rickert Drive at its Book Road intersection in Naperville.

The car’s driver, Kenneth E. Holmberg, 75, of the 20000 block of West Snowberry Lane in Plainfield, was charged with disobeying a traffic signal and failure to exercise due care to avoid colliding with a pedestrian or bicyclist, according to the Tribune. Holmberg pleaded guilty to both charges and received just six months of probation.

Holmberg’s lawyer, Terrence F. Guolee, called Driscoll’s death “a tragic accident.”

“Certainly Mr. Holmberg is glad to have the matter behind him, and he considers (Driscoll's death) to be very tragic also," Guolee told the Tribune Friday.

Holmberg had “inadequate insurance to compensate the family,” Dixon told the Chicago Tribune, adding that the case was worth millions and that the amount awarded was merely a pittance.

Emily was a graduate of Waubonsie Valley High School, where she played in the school orchestra. Timothy Driscoll described his daughter as a talented young woman who begged her parents for years to get a dog. Finally, an opportunity came along to adopt a retired racing Greyhound.

“Quincy was a rescue dog,” Driscoll told Patch in a November 2014 article. “He lived here but she took full ownership of him. He had a pretty good racing record. He was very gentle, very docile. He slept 18 hours a day.”

More via the Chicago Tribune...